Heroes United: Camp Titan
by Kevin Springer
Summary: When the children of titans enter the fray, all of Olympus goes into an uproar.
1. Chapter 1

**Heroes United**

**Camp Titan**

**Kevin Springer**

Chapter 1

Damien

_"Arise my son,"_ said the swirling black mass of his nightmares._ "Avenge me. Bring down the son of Poseidon."_

Eighteen year-old Damien Connors woke from his fitful sleep drenched in sweat in his small San Francisco apartment. It was the same dream again, and it was getting worse. For the past couple of days, Damien had been having dreams about the darkness, monsters fighting teenage warriors with glowing weapons, and an image of his twin brother, Engel, who had disappeared several days ago.

Damien slapped the snooze button on his alarm clock and walked to the bathroom to get ready for another day at the Bay's School for Troubled Teens. He looked in the mirror and brushed his long black hair from his golden eyes and saw how pale he was. The dream always did that to him, it made him wake up shaking, sweating, and missing his brother.

His mother had been no help in trying to explain what was going on. By the time he woke up, Damien's mother was already at her job at the University as a theoretical physicist, and despite her success and prowess in the field, Dr. Connors had forced her children to live in a second-hand apartment in one of the worst parts of San Francisco.

Damien walked out the door to the apartment wearing worn out denim jeans and a black v-neck toting a small _Adidas_ backpack. He disliked walking to school, but with his motorcycle in the repair shop, he was reduced to roughing it on the pavement. He checked his watch for the time and saw that he had little more than fifteen minutes if he wanted to show up on time. Normally that would have caused him to worry, but ever since his brother went missing, he gave little care to anything else. It really didn't matter if he went to school anyway; he suffered from ADHD and dyslexia, so studying was pretty much out of the question. The only classes he seemed to excel at were ancient history and gym, and that would mean nothing to a college.

Suddenly, a chill crept over Damien, as if all the warmth in his body fled all at once. He tried to run from it, but his body wouldn't move. Damien looked around for help, but as he looked around, everyone on the streets seemed to be, moving in slow motion.

_"You are slow to awaken to your power my son,"_ said the voice from his dreams. _"Your brother came to realize his potential much quicker than you."_

"Who are you?!" Damien cried out to the voice. "Where is Engel?!"

_"All in good time my son, you will find your true destiny, but perhaps you need a little push."_ And with that, the voice was gone and the world proceeded into normal speed once more.

Damien fell to his knees, sweating, with his mind filled with visions of monsters, soldiers wearing bronze armor, and dogs made from the shadows themselves. "What the hell was that?" But Damien knew that he was unlikely to get an answer. Everyone else on the street seemed not to have noticed the strange episode. The only thing he could do now was head to school.

As Damien walked through the doors of the school, he felt that something was wrong. Everyone seemed to be moving slower than normal, as if they were trapped in a giant vat of amber. "Man, what is with today?"

"Why it's the day of your awakening my lord."

Damien turned to see a pair of dwarf-men wearing clothes that seemed to scream at his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, thinking that it was a trick of the light, but when he took another look, the yellow eyes were still staring back at him.

"Who are you and why are you wearing the rejected Mr. T collection?" was the only thing that Damien could think of.

The dwarfs started to laugh at Damien's ignorance. "Ha ha ha! So it's true! This kid doesn't even know who we are," said the dwarf with the patchy red fur and zebra patterned cowboy hat.

The dwarf on the left with the brown fur and referee's shirt was the first to calm himself down and straightened himself enough look Damien in the eye. "Look, I'm Akmon, and this," said the brown furred monkey-man as he pointed to his look alike, "is Passalos. We are the Kerkopes. Children of the titan Oceanus and famous tricksters of Heracles."

"I'm sorry," said Damien as he scratched the side of his head, "did you just say titan?"

"You can ask all the questions you want when we get you to camp, but for now." The Kerkopes brothers charged forward with claws raised, crying out monkey sounds that wouldn't be misplaced in a Tarzan movie.

"You've got to be kidding me." Damien dodged Akmon's claw and Passalos's kick and retreated down the hallway.

The other students turned and looked in chock. "Oh my gosh, there's a fight!" "Those two kids are attacking Connors!" "Someone call a teacher!"

'Kids? What are they talking about?' Damien waved the thought away and focused on the two monkeys trying to kill him.

"Hold still darn it!" Passalos aimed a kick at Damien's chest, and despite that he blocked it with his backpack, it was powerful enough to send him flying into one of the classrooms.

"Argh!" The kick was like getting hit with a steel bar. Damien struggled to get back on his feet, but he knew that no matter what he did he wouldn't last another minute against the Kerkopes; they were too fast.

"He he he you're done for kid." The twin monsters walked through the door smiling, revealing horrible yellow fangs. The two Kerkopes leaped towards Damien claws extended with a wild look in their yellow eyes.

"STOP!" He didn't know how or why he did it, but Damien instinctively raised his hand towards the attacking monsters and he felt a surge of power flow from his fingers. He braced himself, expecting to be torn to shreds, but the pain never came. He opened his eyes a crack and looked dumbfounded at a pair of frozen monkey-men. Not frozen as in, hey everybody, let's all have a Kerkopsicle, but frozen like, hey, I can't move, frozen.

Damien got to his feet and slowly walked towards the floating Kerkopes and waved his hand in front of their faces. "This is just too weird."

"Indeed, young hero."

Damien felt his heart stop and jumped backwards five feet, thinking that one of the Kerkopes had began to move again.

"Calm yourself Damien, I'm over here." Sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of the room was Damien's ancient history teacher, Mr. Brunner.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Damien

Mr. Brunner was Damien's favorite teacher. As always, he was wearing a tweed jacket and had a blanket covering his legs and his bushy beard along with his kind brown eyes gave him a natural trustworthy quality. He was also one of the few who consoled Damien when he heard that his brother had gone missing, but would he be that kind and considerate after seeing him fight a pair of monsters and freeze them in midair? Damien doubted it. "Um, Mr. Brunner what are you doing here?"

Mr. Brunner raised his eyebrow and tapped the corner of a large teacher's desk. "It's my classroom Damien."

"Oh…" Damien looked around the room to see maps of Greece, diagrams of ancient war machines, and posters of gods. "I don't suppose you see a pair of floating, very badly dressed, monkey guys do you?"

Mr. Brunner chuckled and pointed at the exact spot where the Kerkopes were still frozen. "You mean Akmon and Passalos? Yes I see them Damien, but let's not worry about them for now." Mr. Brunner wheeled himself towards Damien, stopping just a couple of feet away. "Damien, you're going to have to trust me."

"What do you mean Mr. Brunner? And how do you know their names?" Damien suddenly became very wary of his teacher and took up a fighting stance; despite him being in a wheelchair, Mr. Brunner suddenly seemed way more dangerous than the Kerkopes. "Who are you and what's going on?"

Mr. Brunner raised his hands defensively. "Please relax Damien, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just here to help." The sound of a bell ringing echoed from the hallway along with the din of hundreds of students on their way to class. "This really isn't the time or place to discuss it. Damien, we should go."

"I don't think so," Damien said as he took a couple of more steps back towards the door, only to bump into the still floating Kerkopes. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Mr. Brunner sighed and shook his head. "Fine." He began rummaging through a bag strapped to the side of his chair and brought a large wooden bow, along with a quiver of glowing bronze arrows. "Step aside please."

Damien did as he was told and moved several feet away from the door, not wishing to be at the receiving end of an arrow wielded by an insane history teacher.

Mr. Brunner knocked two of the glowing arrows onto his bow and took aim at the Kerkopes, who, despite being frozen, seemed to have changed their expressions to sheer terror.

Damien watched in horror as Mr. Brunner released the arrows and saw Akmon and Passalos dissolve into a cloud of dust and flannel that was quickly whisked away by a wind that seemed to come from nowhere. "What did you do?!"

Mr. Brunner stuffed his bow and quiver back into his side bag and brushed of some of the monster dust that drifted onto his tweed jacket. "I just sent them back to Tartarus, but they'll be back, sooner rather than later given the current state of things. Now then, I suggest you come with me Damien. More monsters will come and I only have so many arrows."

While the rest of the school prepared for classes, Damien and Mr. Brunner walked/wheeled out the back door into the staff parking lot. Damien made sure to keep a few feet behind Mr. Brunner in case he needed to make a quick getaway, but considering Mr. Brunner's skill with his bow, he doubted that it would make much of a difference. "Where are we going anyway?"

"To camp," said Mr. Brunner without looking back.

"And where is this camp?"

"New York."

"New York, right. And I suppose we're just gonna hop on a plane and fly there."

Mr. Brunner chuckled as he wheeled himself forward. "Hardly. A friend of mine is going to be doing us a favor."

After walking to the back of the parking lot, Damien could see a mailman with salt and pepper hair leaning against a delivery truck. He was flipping through an order log with a pen that seemed to have a pair of snakes circling around it. Damien looked skeptically at the mailman as he and Mr. Brunner stopped in front of him. "So we're going all the way to New York by snail mail… Great." Damien turned to see the mailman looking at him with startling blue eyes, and suddenly, he felt an overwhelming sense of power surge from the man.

The mailman clicked his pen and stuck it in his shirt pocket. "Cheeky one isn't he Chiron?"

"You can hardly blame him Lord Hermes, it's been a rough couple of days for him."

Damien looked from one man to the other and couldn't tell if they were crazy, serious, or seriously crazy. "Hermes? As in _the_ Hermes? As in the god of messengers, roads, and thieves, Hermes?"

The mailman sneered and took a mock bow. "At your service."

_Sure, don't introduce us. We're just the pen._

_ Hush George._

Hermes rolled his eyes as he took out his pen and clicked it a few times. "Why don't the both of you be quiet?"

_Ouch! Was that really necessary?_

Damien looked around the parking lot for the source of the voices he had just heard. "Who was that?"

Hermes sighed as he presented his pen, which began to glow with such intense light that Damien was forced to look away, and when he looked back, he saw a glowing bronze staff with wings and serpents circling around it. "Damien, meet George and Martha."

"Um… Hi?" Damien gave the snakes an awkward kind of wave as he stared at them spiraling around the pole.

_Ooh, he's a good-looking one Hermes._

_ Got any mice?_

_ George!_

"You two be quiet or so help me." Hermes clicked his fingers and turned the snakes back into a pen and stuck it in his shirt pocket once more. "So, now that that's out of the way, what do you need Chiron?"

"If you would be so kind as to get us to camp."

Hermes raised his eyebrows and looked at Damien, then at Mr. Brunner. "That's it? You get me to pretty much disobey Zeus about his whole 'keep low for now' rule and all you want me to do is send you and the kid to camp? I thought you said it was important."

"Excuse me," Damien said as he stepped between his teacher and the world's most powerful mailman, "this 'kid' has a name, and he would really appreciate it if someone would explain to him what on Earth was going on right about now."

Mr. Brunner looked around Damien to Hermes. "It is important my Lord, and I'll be sure to fill you and the other Olympians in as soon as I know more, but for now, we really should be going."

"Fine, but Chiron, you owe me for this one, and I plan to collect."

"Of course." Mr. Brunner grabbed Damien's elbow with a vice like grip. "Best you hold on Damien, it can get a bit bumpy."

"Whoa! Hold on a min-" Damien never got the chance to finish his sentence as Hermes waved a hand and everything went dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Damien

Damien fell to his knees as he slammed into the unforgiving ground beneath him. He blinked his eyes a few times to readjust to the light as he struggled to his feet. "Ow! What the hell, man? Shouldn't the god of travel be able to land us a little more softly?" Damien rubbed his eyes a couple more times and looked down at the most amazing place he had ever seen in his life. He was looking at what appeared to be an entire Greek themed campground in the center of a large valley. "Whoa."

"Damien," said Mr. Brunner, who Damien had all but forgotten about, "welcome to Camp Half-Blood."

Damien was in awe at the wondrous sight before him. At the front of the campsite, was a massive house that was painted the same color as the sky, to the right of which was what appeared to be an entire acre of strawberry fields. There were stables next to the fields, where Damien saw a beautiful girl with a brunette ponytail and an orange shirt come surging out, riding a shimmering white horse and almost fell over again when he saw that it had wings.

"Was that a…?" Damien stammered, trying to get the word out of his mouth.

"A pegasus? Yes indeed. However, that wasn't _the_ Pegasus. No no, I believe that was Quicksilver."

Damien raised his eyebrow at his history teacher. "Its name is Quicksilver?"

"His. And yes it is." Mr. Brunner shrugged and gave a nonchalant smile.

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"That's not even the best part Damien, take a look over there a ways," said Mr. Brunner as he pointed to the center of the camp.

"No way." Damien followed Mr. Brunner's finger and saw dozens of Greek styled cabins. One looked like the walls were made completely of obsidian with lanterns hanging along the edge of the roof, burning with green flames. Another looked as if the roof was made of lush grass and it had a lawn of beautiful blooming flowers. For so many cabins however, there seemed to be too few campers in orange shirts walking around, but that didn't stop Damien from admiring the camp. "Okay, this is seriously cool."

"Trust me Damien, you're going to love it here. Now we better get down to the big house for your orientation before Peleus gets too excited."

"Who?" Damien barley had time to ask before he heard a terrible roar that could shake the earth beneath his feet. Damien caught his balance and steadied himself as the roar died down. "Let me guess…?"

"Yes, that's Peleus. Anyhow, now that we're here, I think I'll stretch my legs."

"Um but Mr. Brunner," Damien said pointing at Mr. Brunner's wheelchair, "aren't you…?" He didn't want to seem insensitive, but the question of how his teacher could stretch his legs hung in the air.

"Relax dear boy and watch." Mr. Brunner removed the blanket covering his legs and began to sit up, but something was wrong; his legs weren't moving. Mr. Brunner kept rising until he was several feet taller than Damien and was supported by four horse legs, complete with tail.

"Aw, much better. Oh and Damien, call me Chiron."

Damien tried to get the fact that his former teacher was now standing (and as a half-horse to top it off). "You're a centaur?! Wait, did you just say that you're Chiron?! Like _the _Chiron?! Like the trainer of Achilles and Jason, Chiron?!"

Chiron chuckled and stroked his beard while he watched Damien almost fall over himself. "It does my heart good to know that you paid so much attention in my class."

Damien ran his hand through his hair as he tried to process the information that he had received in the past half hour. Apparently, there were dwarf monkey men running around in the world, pegasi were real, and his supposedly handicapped history teacher was really a centaur trainer of heroes.

"Damien, you should really come with me to the big house. I assure you that things will become quite clear once you've sat down and saw the presentation."

"Wow, a presentation," Damien said with obvious mirth. "Will there be a powerpoint and some snacks afterwards?"

"Maybe, if you survive," said Chiron as he started trotting to the large blue house.

"Ha ha, if I survive," Damien chuckled as he watched Chiron get ever closer to the blue house. Damien's chuckling ended as he noticed that Chiron hadn't turned around. "Okay now I'm worried that you're not joking."

"It'll be fine Damien," Chiron yelled over his shoulder.

Damien ran to catch up with Chiron at the door, which Damien was stunned to see, was actually large enough for Chiron to walk through. Inside the house was a large ping-pong table littered with maps, a small platter of brownies, and what looked like a sword made from a large bone.

"Well Damien, until Annabeth and Percy get here, why don't I get us started? You are a child of the gods. And by gods I mean either Greek or Roman. Your mother must have at one point had a relationship with one of them and here you are." Chiron said this so casually that it took Damien a moment to actually understand what he was saying.

"I'm the child… of one of the gods…" Damien said as he nodded. He took some time to look at Chiron and the rest of the room before turning back towards the front door of the big house muttering to himself, "I hit my head this morning on my way to school didn't I? See that would explain everything. The monkey dwarf things, the reason why those brownies look like they're glowing, the fact that my history teacher is half horse and just told me that my parents are gods."

"Actually, it's 'parent.' Just one. Damien, please sit down," Chiron said as he gestured towards one of the chairs along the ping-pong table.

Damien faced his former teacher with a slightly manic smile on his face. "Look Mr. Brunner or Chiron or whatever the heck you want me to call you, I can accept that you're a centaur and that there are pegasi and that some mailman managed to send us here in less time than it took for me to get out a sentence, but my dad, a god? There's just no way you can prove that."

"Actually we can," said a voice coming from the front door. Damien jumped two feet in the air and turned to see the girl from earlier that was riding the pegasus. Her hair was down now and she had a water bottle in her hand that she was using to cool her forehead. The girl laughed when Damien managed to regain his balance by slamming his hand in the middle of the platter of brownies. "Smooth."

"Um, hi." Damien waved with his now brownie stained fingers and then wiped them on his jeans. "I saw you earlier. Riding um…"

"Quicksilver."

"Right. I'm Damien Connors by the way," he said as he extended his recently cleaned hand.

The girl smiled, shook Damien's hand, and said, "Kate Williams."

Damien looked at Kate's eyes and was blown away by them. They were a deep forest green ringed with an edge of blue the color of sapphires. "Wow."

"What?"

"Oh, no, nothing," Damien stammered, taking back his hand which he noticed had gotten clammy. He mentally kicked himself and tried to salvage what was left of his dignity. "Sorry, it was nothing."

Kate smiled again and sipped her water. She looked Damien up down while she drank and furrowed her brow slightly.

Damien could feel blood creep up to his cheeks as he watched Kate look him over. "Something you're looking for?"

Kate bobbled her water bottle and blushed slightly when Damien laughed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare, it's just that I can't place who your parent is and I'm usually pretty good at that sort of thing."

"She's a physicist in San Francisco."

"She means your godly parentage, Damien," said yet another voice that Damien didn't no that came from behind his back.

Damien turned back towards the ping-pong table, and standing next to Chiron was a girl with blonde hair and eyes that were grey like storm clouds and a young man with black hair, eyes the color of the sea, and a pen spinning between his fingers.


End file.
